


two moons

by horaharo



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, death mentions, murder mentions, shinigami au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaharo/pseuds/horaharo
Summary: Is a heartbeat a hint of life, or is it just someone holding into something with all their strength? Is love over when heartbeats stop, or is death a boundary made up by non-believers? Perhaps they would learn the answers to these questions too late.(Enstars Shipping Olympics Round 3)





	1. First moon

Every single time I raise my head from the paper I have been writing on, I see him. He's there, standing right in front of me as he observes every little gesture of mine, even if I'm just sneezing, with his sharp, deep blue eyes. You can notice their shape even if it's dark at night, the time when he usually comes to check up on me. His hair is silver grey, but it could be any color depending on the kind of lighting shining upon him, like a blank canvas, yet so beautiful, blank as it is.

Every single time I compose those songs of love I've never had the opportunity to dedicate to anyone –love for the unloved, perhaps– he's looking at me with a somehow interested expression, even if it's more than obvious that he's trying to hide it at any cost, thinking I wouldn’t notice.

Sometimes I just wish I could lay my hand on his and feel warmth, but everytime I did, I found nothing but a cold surface that doesn't even feel real under my own weak, shaky hand that can't wait to let go its last breath.

I know I won't be here for too long from now, and yet, it wasn't until I met him that I knew my life could have been better in, perhaps, a million ways. As it is now. As he makes me feel. No one else in this world I deemed lovable yet difficult to get love back from has ever made me as happy as he has, dead as he is. Even cold afternoons at the hospital are warm as long as he's here.

His name? I might know. But I call him Sena, not to call him a servant of Death. I've never seen someone live so much even after perishing God knows how, and you know, perhaps Life does love Death and that's why it sends gifts for Death to keep them forever in its care. Sena was a gift, I'm sure about it, and I will cling to that idea, stronger as every second near him passes.

He raises his hand as his index finger explores my forehead with such a gentle touch I can't even feel his imaginary skin pressing on mine, which sometimes is imaginary too. And he tells me to go to sleep in a somehow pained voice, as if he was conscious of the fact that he wouldn't need to be here if I took care of myself properly. I can feel it's painful for him, too.

* * * *

When we first met, he told me he made a mistake and came too early for me. That it wasn't my time to die, but not too far from it. That I needed to prepare for it, and that he would himself take my life and bring me along with him somewhere. I don't know many more details, since my mind could only focus on all those sempiternal melodies that filled my brain with grace and freedom. He kept talking and, even then, I wasn't listening to him. But hearing his voice was more than enough to make me feel comfortable.

“What's this?” he asked once, while holding some papers I used to compose those songs of mine on which, at this point of my illness, went absolutely nowhere but the void.

I looked at him in confusion. He might not have remembered what a song was when he looked at it. For how long had Sena not even listened to a single G note?

“It's one of my wildest dreams!” I told him, while showing him the biggest of my smiles, even if the pain in my heart was holding the knife's sharp side close to my veins. “But on paper.”

Sena furrowed, but didn't seem angry or frustrated at all. His expression simply showed a somehow entertaining confusion I wish I would be able to see again.

* * * *

Now, he's making the same face, making my wish come true, and yet, I can see how his eyes smile at me with such human warmth that it almost feels tangible.

“I don't want to sleep now” I tell him, and I really don't want to go to sleep. Sleeping was hard when Sena held that terrible countdown clock near his chest, and I can't stop looking at it. That's how long I will be able to live, and for once, I wish it wasn't so little time.

“Your heart needs it” he uses his thumb along with his index and, progressively, the rest of his fingers to make them rest on my cheek's skin. His hand still feels cold. Sena reminds me of how pitiful I am to have fallen for the creature who was going to put an end to my very own name. “Do you want this clock to go faster? There's no way you can think about surviving like this. Don't be such an idiot.”

I inhale, as I draw my attention to his eyes, instead of the clock, for the first time in the whole night we're spending together, like we always do.

“If I survive, would you erase yourself from my memory?” and that's all I wanted to ask him since we met. I am usually not this sulky, in fact, Sena might hate me for being so energetic, but I can almost feel how this new behaviour of mine troubles him, thanks to his beautiful and expressive face showing how he twists his lips after hearing my question.

“Yes. That's what I have to do.”

That's his reply, and I let out a long and heavy sigh. It takes me a short moment to smile again, even if it's hard to do it now.

“You don't look happy about it.”

“I am not” he reassures me. It's a surprise that he's this honest even now, but I won't comment on it. When Sena is being true to himself, even if calm and composed, it's when he looks the most beautiful to me. “I shouldn't have made that mistake. If I hadn't made it, I just would have the obligation to come and, in a second, put an end to your life. Easy come, easy go. As it has always been.”

I stay silent, but my smile widens its horizons and my eyes shrink a bit because of it. He notices and makes a clearly annoyed expression, as if he's aware that he's being honest for once. I didn't know reapers could be this stubborn about their own selves, and at the bottom of my heart, I'm happy people don't lose their emotions even after death.

“You shouldn't try to befriend someone who's going to carry you to the end of your existence on Earth.”

“But you do exist, Sena, don't you? And you're on Earth” I reply playfully, as I press my two hands against both his cheeks. He furrows and tries to pull me away, but I wrap my arms around his neck, almost making his black veil fall from his head. “Besides, we're already friends, aren't we? Wahahaha! We'll be friends forever, Sena! Even if I die, even if I survive!”

I can't see his face because I'm hugging him, but I know he looks sad. I am pretty aware of it, since even if they were my own words, they made me sad as well. As all I hear is absolute and dreadly silence, I open my mouth to continue the requiem.

“... Even if I forget you if I survive, you will always be my friend.”

That's when he returns my hug, and I can feel his cold and lifeless nose rubbing my neck's skin a bit. He doesn't answer, but that's enough for me to know he feels the same, and I'm glad, once more, that people are able to feel even after death, and to have friends, even after death, and have faith, even after death. I make my fingers go through the thin locks of soft, unreal and silver hair, for a moment that seems like a long and lonely “forever”, before he speaks.

“Do you have any other of those wild dreams before you go to sleep?” he asks, and for once in all the time I have known him, I feel like I'm hugging an alive and childish infant who doesn't want to let go.

I stay silent, nodding, as I wonder for how long Sena had been dead.


	2. Last moon

Please, don’t die.

From the bottom of my heart, the last thing I would want on Earth would be your death. And by “you” I mean the idiot who is sleeping right beside me. Even after all these days of me just watching him and remembering things from when I was alive, I feel unable to leave him alone during the night. And I feel the same during the day, but protecting him then is basically impossible for me. I have other things to do.

I truly wish I hadn’t made that terrible mistake. My mind was full of things to think about after putting an end to someone else’s life in the worst case scenario I could ever think about that I mistook the date of this little sprout’s death. And I’m calling him a little sprout because he’s just… too young. He was just like me when I died.

Well, I didn’t die, actually. Someone else killed me, but that’s something the person I call Leo-kun would never know nor understand. And I have lost the count of days in which I have been completely lifeless until now… I just know and imagine this is the happiest I have ever been and will ever be in my after-life.

Being frankly honest, I could have just left him alone until he died, but something caught my eye or, more specifically, my ears, awakening them from their eternal sleep. He was giving melody to words I had never listened to before, desperate chants, as if he was crying for help. I couldn’t leave someone that resembled so much the me from many years ago, who left the world completely alone and laying on a puddle of blood, under someone else’s stained hands. I, more than anyone, know how sad it is to leave no love in the world we often call “home”.

Even while dreaming, he is still holding my index finger. Our hands aren’t that different in size, but he still manages to use the five of his fingers to prison one of my own. I sigh, but I don’t scold him or anything. He’s sleeping, after all, there are no hard feelings behind those actions… And even if there were, it was too late. Ugh, if only I had known I would feel this way around someone after my own death, I would have made it somehow to survive that knife and keep walking until I could put a less miserable end to my life.

But that’s not like me, a coward who only thinks about the consequences of his actions. I can’t even move a single toe without thinking about that exact action at least five times. And the fact that I don’t need to do it around Leo-kun might be what made me happier, but I will never know… 

His resting face is simply one of the best things my eyes got to see. That stupid smile… I wonder what he’s dreaming about, until he stops being able to do so ever again. It feels bad, it really does feel bad when you’re the one to rip someone’s dreams off from their owner and throw them away like it’s nothing, and the worst thing is that I needed to fall in love to be aware of this.

It hurts, and he knows. I’m sure he does, even if I don’t tell him.

So please, don’t die. Even if you will forget about me and I won’t, I will bear the pain for you. Someone else that isn’t me needs to value your smile, your words of love, those melodies that you call your “wildest dreams”. I don’t want to be the one to take them away from you. The best gift Life could bring Death is you to stay in this world, making people happy, people making you happy. Because I know you’re able to do so, while I wasn’t.

My index finger is not enough to calm my fear of feeling his hand turn cold forever, so I use my left one to cover his, clinging to the only living creature I would ever feel attached to, after perishing. And I close my eyes, whispering three words I knew I would never be able to let out anytime soon.

* * * *

He told me he had felt severe heartaches since morning. Behind his back, I checked my clock again and again, only to confirm the number hadn’t changed at all, as I let a deep and long sigh out in each of the occasions. 

That night, he told me he wanted to sing something with me. I agreed, even if I knew it was going to be a difficult task for my untrained voice, but I promised myself I would do my best. So here we are, sitting on his hospital bed, holding some papers with difficult note combinations and drawings and written words I can’t understand. I wonder how I’ll be able to sing something I don’t have any idea about.

“Sena! Look, we’re going to do an experiment” he tells me, pointing at my sheets. “I know you don’t understand them, that’s part of it! I just wanted to find out about something, and if at least a minute after you feel like you can, uhmmm… ‘magically’ understand it, then I want you to show me your widest smile!”

I stare at him.

“I haven’t smiled in ages, I can’t do that.”

“You will! You know, I have unlimited power!” and then he starts rambling about being the king or something. I don’t pay attention, because I am too busy trying to find out how exactly he’s going to make me smile at this point of my after-life. I surely can feel things, that’s something I realized not too long ago, but expressing emotions has never been my forte.

“Well, close your mouth now for a moment”, I tell him, taking a deep breath. “Are we going to start or are you going to keep talking nonsense…? Seriously.”

“It’s not nonsense!” he accumulates air inside his cheeks. “You should learn to listen to others, Sena. It’s not too late!”

That offends me, but I let it go as I stay silent. And that helps me hear someone talking outside, so I use my index finger to make a hand gesture at him so he could keep quiet for a moment.

All I hear is a “ah, he’s talking on his own again. Hopefully he won’t suffer for much longer”, and that’s enough to make me feel like all my nonexistent organs are starting to rot. Leo-kun might have heard that too, so I turn my head at him, with a concerned look on my face, unfortunately.

But to my surprise, he’s grinning like the bright sun at midday on a hot summer day.

“I’m not alone, so don’t worry” he pats next to him on the bed, as if he was telling me to come and sit closer. I obey without even thinking about it, feeling how hard this hospital bed is.

“I’m nothing to other people, so just… don’t listen to them.”

“If I prefer listening to the void than listening to what they think are ‘real people’, then that’s their fault! Isn’t it, Sena?” he says cheerfully, holding his sheets as he turns a bit to see me, face to face. “Okay, let’s start! I will sing first, then you follow me!”

“I don’t know how to follow something that I don’t understand” I complain.

“You will eventually! Have some patience, my dear imaginary friend. You can sing alone and everyone will think you’re doing it on your own, but they’ll fail to know whether you’re singing for someone else or not. No one knows if the feelings conveyed are actually felt by the artist. So listen to me! You will soon understand what I mean…”

I look at him with wide eyes, in silence, as he prepares himself. He clears his throat and immediately starts singing a melody that, at first, I thought I hadn’t listened to in my life. But as he continues, something in my mind starts to click. And I close my eyes, almost seeing images of what could be my past life, but they are so blurry I can’t figure it out. I can only see a giant tree in a corner of the room in which three people gather around a table, with boxes, and lots of lights. I… 

I start singing as well, not even knowing how. Its lyrics appear in my head so suddenly, and I can’t even think before Leo-kun and I start to sing together in perfect harmony.

It was true. I didn’t need those sheets, I didn’t need to understand what was written on those papers, and the melody and his voice were just enough to make me feel as if a thousand butterflies invaded my stomach. It’s a warm feeling, but it hurts for some mysterious reason, making my mouth smile in a way in which my happiness just feels… true.

I was smiling, as I could finally see my own face in those images in my head. I was a child, happily clinging to his mom while pointing at those boxes beneath the tree. If I recall correctly, those were gifts, and someone whose name started with S brought them home. But it’s all so confusing I can’t even think about it on a deeper level.

Once I open my eyes, Leo-kun’s face is leaning closer to mine. I blink and stop singing, as I can sense how my face’s dead skin is burning as fire does. He just laughs at me, interrupting the melody so suddenly it feels incomplete.

“See? I have superpowers” he laughs and keeps on talking. “It’s called a ‘song’, Sena. You sing songs when you’re feeling things such as happiness, anger, and even sadness, too… We’re close to Christmas now, so it felt just right making you remember precious memories of when you were alive! Did it feel good? Were you able to see anything? Were you happy?”

As he speaks, I just happened to be leaning closer to his face, not even noticing my own actions. Looking at him closer, his eyes still look tired, pained, hurt. It’s unfair that I got to be this happy and he couldn’t. Who’s the one who is dead now?

“I was” I admit, finally. “I am.”

“Wahaha--- Sena, you’re… You’re close!” he places his hands on my shoulders, but doesn’t push me away. I smile again, as I take his right one with mine and put it on my cheek. His eyes show wider than usual when he touches my skin.

“You’re… alive” he continues, and of course, he’s feeling the heat he told me so many times he wanted to feel when he touches me. It’s embarrassing, but I had to let him know he managed to do it. I want to make him happy, too.

His lips form a wide and beautiful smile that comes to his face in slow pace, as if it is hard for him. As if something is stopping him.

And I am a fool for not noticing it in time. For just wanting more, for clinging to affection, for not thinking.

Because all I do is sigh and smile, as I let go of his hand, this time placing my own on his two cheeks.

“I love you. I won’t, not even in a thousand years, forget you. I love you, Leo-kun.”

“I… love you… too, Sena~… Thank you…”

And I feel like I could keep saying those three words out loud for eternity, but my desire pushes me to act before speaking. My lips touch against his in a tender and sweet kiss, perhaps too awkward since it’s my first time and maybe his, too.

But I don’t get a reply. And his head feels heavy on my hands.

Oh, I know.

Leo-kun’s vivid green eyes that had been looking at me all those days with such warmth they made me feel alive are staring at the ceiling, now lifeless. Not even a spot of light is possible to find in them, and I feel my hands shaking like the first time I tried riding a bike, one of the gifts I received the night I was able to remember thanks to him.

I can’t see through the water that invade my eyes, claiming its territory for, perhaps, a long time from now. The only, single thing that has managed to make me feel, smile, have something interesting to do and, more importantly, made me feel able to love someone, is gone.

He’s gone.

* * * *

I’ve been sitting here for an hour, more or less. His dead body is resting next to me, peacefully, as if he was still sleeping and breathing.

The clock still has a number on it, and I hate it. I want to throw it off the window. But right now, I’m unable to feel anger, I can just see how my pants get little wet spots due to my own tears, even if I’m not weeping. They just come out and won’t stop.

I’m the one holding his index fingers with all of mine, now. The gesture gives you a sensation of being… small? It makes you feel tiny compared to the person whose finger you’re clinging to.

I don’t want to go. But it’s unbearable to watch, so I’ve been looking at the night sky for a while now. Not a single hospital worker came to check up on him, so when they do, they’ll find a surprise. A surprise they don’t care about.

I should be doing my job. I’m able to see people’s memories once they’re dead and such, but… I really don’t want to know. I don’t want to know about him all by himself: I want  _ him _ to tell me. I want to hear his voice again. I want to feel him again. I had been shaking his body some minutes ago, calling him by his name, and I’ve hugged him for an eternity, but he won’t come back now.

And yet, I feel like it’s possible to meet him again, sometime soon.

The nurses come in, and one of them puts her hands on her head, with a horrified expression on her face. Perhaps she’s new, I don’t know. But pretending they’re shocked is the worst thing I’ve seen yet, in all the time I’ve been witnessing how humans are absolute hopeless fools.

One of them calls the others, and more people start coming. They’re all asking what those papers around him are, and I say “they’re songs” out loud, without even turning my head, more or less four times. Later, I remember that they can’t see nor hear me, so it’s simply pointless to tell them.

I stand up with a bit of difficulty, still with tears rolling down my cheeks. And I want to kill all of them, but I won’t. I just take the useless countdown clock, my scythe, my black veil, and bend my body over his only to kiss his pale forehead, while more people come in the room. I place one of my feet on the window frame, before jumping, leaving the place I won’t be visiting ever again behind.

I use my sleeves to clean my tears, as I wonder for how long Leo-kun will be dead until we meet again.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello! this is the final chapter! only two, each one using different character pov. i know many people don't like povs nor present tense narration but i went all out with it because i felt like it suited what i wanted to do the most!
> 
> this fic is angsty, yes, and i hope you liked it! it's my first time writing in english so i apologize if you can see basic mistakes or my writing style seems wonky. thank you for reading!!! ♥


End file.
